As a disability lawyer for almost 20 years on Long Island, I am proud to say that I have never represented any LIRR employee in a Railroad Retirement Board disability claim. It appears they didn’t need me – all they had to do to get disability benefits was to raise their hand! Unfortunately, abuses like this tarnish those LIRR employees with legitimate disability claims, of which I am sure there are many.

I predict this story is only going to get bigger, and will eventually lead to major reform of the Long Island Rail Road workers disability system. One simple solution would be to simply abolish the Railroad Retirement Board, and to include LIRR employees in the Social Security Disability system, which generally requires the claimant to be "disabled from all work", not just their "regular occupation". This would also help LIRR workers since Social Security disability taxes withheld from their paycheck are far less than the railroad system taxes they now pay. Perhaps Senators Schumer and Clinton can propose this easy fix. However this broken system is reformed, the days of automatic disability pensions for LIRR workers are over. Now they will have to be truly disabled.